Name: Taylor Price
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana
Degree/Major: Landscape Architecture
Where did you intern? What did you do there?
WJ Johnson Civil Engineering and Landscape Architecture located in Bonita Spring, Florida. I performed residential planting plans, conducted large scale plant inventories at several subdivisions, condominiums, and commercial centers and generated Photo Shop illustrations for our clients.
How did you get your internship?
I applied with my cv after hearing about the opening through Professor David Rifkind
What advice do you have for those beginning the internship process?
Sounds obvious, but you won’t get an internship unless you put yourself out there. This was only one of many applications I sent out.
What projects did you work on?
Large scale home owners associations for neighborhood and condominium complexes.
How did your internship connect back to your coursework?
Being sufficient in autocad, photoshop, and illustrator were extremely important in completing my assignments. Also, the South Florida landscapes course came in handy referring to landscape materials.
What was the coolest thing about your internship or that happened during your internship?
The coolest thing that happened during my internship was taking part in and presenting my work to clients. The relationship with the client is something we don’t learn in coursework, so that was the most exciting aspect.
What did you like most about your experience?
Being compensated for something I enjoy doing has been my favorite part so far.
What did you learn about yourself?
I’ve always been interested in design, but I learned that I have more of an interest in plants, or the softscape design aspect, than I initially thought.
How did the position increase your professional confidence?
Completing all of my assignments with happy clients has dramatically increased my professional confidence.
How did you expand your professional network?
Meeting contractors and fellow LA’s in the area has improved my presence in the Landscape architecture community as well as help me understand it better.
How did it help you prove yourself in the “real-world?”
It’s wonderful to have beautiful and thoughtful design studio coursework, but working in a real office environment seems to be essential in pushing yourself into a suitable working environment for you to be successful after graduation.
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